Texas Parks and Wildlife CommissionRegulations Committee

Aug. 29, 2001

1
5 BE IT REMEMBERED, that heretofore on the 29th day
6 of August, 2001, there came to be heard matters under the
7 regulatory authority of the Parks and Wildlife Commission of
8 Texas, in the Commission Hearing Room of the Texas Parks and
9 Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin, Texas, beginning at
10 9:00 a.m., to wit:
11
12 APPEARANCES:
THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
13
REGULATIONS COMMITTEE
14 CHAIR: Joseph Fitzsimons, San Antonio, Texas
Katharine Armstrong Idsal, San Antonio, Texas
15 Donato D. Ramos, Laredo, Texas
Carol E. Dinkins, Houston, Texas
16 Philip Montgomery, Dallas, Texas
Ernest Angelo, Jr., Midland, Texas
17 John Avila, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas, Absent
Alvin L. Henry, Houston, Texas
18 Mark E. Watson, Jr., San Antonio, Texas
19
20
21 THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other personnel of
22 the Parks and Wildlife Department
23
24
25
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1 REGULATIONS COMMITTEE
2 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: The meeting is called to
3 order. Before proceeding with any business I believe
4 Mr. Sansom has a statement to make.
5 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Ms. Chairman, a
6 public notice of this meeting containing all items on the
7 proposed agenda has been filed in the office of Secretary of
8 State as required by Chapter 551 of the Government Code and
9 referred to as the Open Meetings Law. I would like for this
10 action to be noted in the official record of the meeting.
11 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Before moving on to the
12 committees I want to make a couple of announcements. One I
13 want to welcome Donato Ramos to the Commission. Donato is
14 from Laredo and we welcome you.
15 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Thank you. Very much
16 Madame Chair. I really look forward and accept the challenge
17 that lies before us. Thank you very much.
18 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: I also want to note that on
19 the committees that I've had a couple of changes. I will be
20 vice-chairman of the Regulations Committee and Joseph
21 Fitzsimons will be chairman of the Regulations Committee.
22 Second of all I want to mention that the ad hoc
23 committee on education and outreach will become a permanent
24 committee chaired by Commissioner Henry. And with that, we
25 can continue with Regulations.
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1 Joseph?
2 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Thank you, Madame Chair.
3 CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Joseph.
4 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Well, I hope I won't be
5 needing that. Bear with me a second, I just had this handed
6 to me. As to the --
7 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: I think we want to
8 approve the minutes from the last meeting.
9 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: From the previous? A
10 motion to approve the minutes from the previous meeting of the
11 Regulations Committee.
12 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: So moved.
13 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Second.
14 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: All in favor?
15 ("Aye").
16 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: All opposed, the same
17 sign. The motion passes. That first item on the agenda is
18 the Chairman's Charges.
19 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Mr. Chairman,
20 Chairman Idsal has issued a new set of charges to each of the
21 committees and I will be reading them this morning for you. I
22 will also distribute a copy for each of you as the committee
23 meetings take place.
24 The -- the mission of this committee is to
25 prudently manage and conserve the natural and cultural
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1 resources of Texas through promulgation of regulations that
2 meet statutory intent, are cost effective, maximize outdoor
3 recreation opportunity, and minimize impact on the customer,
4 are achievable and enforceable and are as simple to understand
5 as possible.
6 The charges for this committee spring primarily
7 from the actions of the 77th Legislature and the
8 implementation of provisions of the Sunset Bill; that is, SB
9 305. Requirements of the Sunset Bill that will be overseen by
10 this committee are first to create a training program for new
11 Commission members to include provision for members of the
12 applicable laws, regulations, information on department
13 functions.
14 Second, to review the committee's structure and
15 establish procedures that ensure public input prior to
16 decision-making, to define what decisions constitute a major
17 decision, to develop a complaint management policy and process
18 for the maintenance of complaint information, to define types
19 of complaints, and develop a complaint tracking and reporting
20 system. To conduct a comprehensive five-year study of the
21 shrimp resources of the state including the population and the
22 economic health of the shrimp industry, to solicit for that
23 purpose input from the public, the industry, businesses and
24 the comptroller and to base all policies with respect to
25 shrimp relating to the use of the resource on the results of
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1 this study.
2 You're going to be directed by Sunset to review
3 the oyster lease permitting process to ascertain the
4 appropriate lease fees per acre, to develop renewal procedures
5 to follow at the end of each lease term, to develop auction
6 procedures for the issuance of a lease, and develop procedures
7 for the reissuance of a lease that has been sold or
8 transferred.
9 The Legislature also provided for some new
10 regulatory opportunity for the department. First and foremost
11 to establish rules prohibiting the hunting, sale, and
12 possession of bats. Second, to examine and develop guidelines
13 for the removal and disposable of abandoned or illegal crab
14 traps and this issue -- this issue will be on your agenda
15 later this morning. To develop rules associated with the
16 regulation of floating cabins. This is also on your schedule
17 this morning. To establish an exemption from fishing licenses
18 for certain mentally retarded persons under the supervision of
19 family or legal guardians, to develop standards for land use
20 qualifying for appraisal as wildlife management and to remove
21 civil restitution and penalties for improper display of
22 commercial shrimp boat license or if there is a violation of
23 the captain's license.
24 And that, Mr. Chairman, concludes the charges
25 for the Regulations Committee.
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1 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Any committee member have
2 a question or wish discussion on this item? Hearing none,
3 we'll move on to the second item on our agenda for the
4 Regulations Committee, the deer management permit proclamation
5 and a presentation from Jerry Cooke and his staff.
6 Jerry.
7 DR. COOKE: Mr. Chairman, and members, my name
8 is Jerry Cooke. I'm game branch chief of the wildlife
9 division. I'll be presenting you the proposed changes to the
10 Deer Management Permit Proclamation. This action is
11 essentially the culmination of actions began back in April in
12 making change to the various deer programs to accommodate some
13 issues that were addressed in HB 2710 the last session.
14 There's really only three points in this
15 proposal and they're relatively simple. One is to place the
16 permit sale on an annual cycle. This was an oversight in both
17 the statute and regulations up to this point. And so
18 essentially we're the putting into the Administrative Code the
19 cycle that we've been using since it was established. So a
20 permit many will be valid from September the 1st or the date
21 of purchase, which is -- whichever is latest in the year,
22 through the following August 31st.
23 The second point was some concerns expressed by
24 some scientific breeders in that deer held under a deer
25 management permit could not be released before March the 1st,
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1 which subjected those deer to the potential of being trapped
2 and moved to another property through the month of March, and
3 which was no one's intent. So we're changing that point in
4 the regulations which essentially says that deer may not be
5 released from a deer management permit breeding facility until
6 April 1st which will exempt it from that permit.
7 And the final point is that one of the issues
8 brought forth in 2710 was to have all of our permits available
9 for a single application process which would necessarily mean
10 a single approval process for all of them. So we would
11 propose to change this permit to allow any biologist or
12 technician assigned to write and approve wildlife management
13 plans could approve this permit.
14 If you have any questions I would be happy to
15 try to answer them for you now.
16 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: What's magic about
17 the April 1st date?
18 DR. COOKE: The TTT permit is only valid
19 through March 31st on the whitetail deer. So it's the day
20 after they can trap them and move them to another property.
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Any particular reason
22 it was set on that date?
23 DR. COOKE: It's a biological -- it's a
24 biological issue. We don't feel that you can trap a deer, a
25 bred deer safely beyond that point without potential injury to
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1 the doe or the fetus. So it's essentially an animal welfare
2 issue.
3 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Jerry, could you tell us
4 so that we understand, the number of people that can now be
5 involved in the approval process, the numbers, the change in
6 number.
7 DR. COOKE: Before we had senior staff
8 basically could approve this. A technical guidance biologist,
9 district leader or higher in the wildlife division, that was
10 probably 8 to 15 people actually did it in the -- in the
11 division. This would raise that number to approximately 200
12 virtually all of our field staff who are assigned to -- to
13 write and approve wildlife management plans would -- and
14 that's the reason we wrote the regulation this way because the
15 fisheries division has biologists and technicians also who do
16 not involve themselves in this kind of program. We just
17 didn't want to have any confusion with the regulation.
18 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Approximately how many
19 plans are there, Jerry?
20 DR. COOKE: For deer management?
21 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Deer management permits.
22 DR. COOKE: Well, it's not approximately, it's
23 exact. It's seven. There's seven deer management permits in
24 Texas.
25 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Was there some feeling
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1 that the small -- relatively small number was a result of not
2 being able to have those plans written by more people?
3 DR. COOKE: I don't think that was really an
4 issue. I think it was more -- what 2710 was going to do was
5 create a single permit and what we supplanted it with was a
6 single application process for multiple permits. You can't
7 really create a bottleneck for seven permits. There's just
8 not one there.
9 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: It doesn't seem like it.
10 DR. COOKE: But if they're all on the same
11 application it makes no sense to have one individual approve
12 all of these permits and then it go to somebody else to do the
13 deer management permit. That's really the issue.
14 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Jerry.
15 DR. COOKE: Yes, sir.
16 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: How does a person qualify
17 to be able to write a game management plan? Do we certify
18 them or --
19 DR. COOKE: No, it's not really a certification
20 process. Basically a guy doesn't report to work and start
21 doing that the first day. It's a -- it's a kind of a
22 seasoning process. As a -- as a -- as a supervisor gains
23 confidence in his -- in his -- in his man or lady in the
24 position, he increases responsibility. There's -- there's no
25 point I don't think in any of our guys' careers where they
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1 don't talk to their supervisor before making some really
2 challenging decisions. But -- but those questions come
3 further and further apart the more confidence the supervisor
4 and the field staff have in -- in what they're doing. So
5 there's not a formal certification process.
6 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Okay.
7 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Any other questions or
8 discussion? There being no further questions or discussion,
9 without objection I'll place this item on the Thursday
10 Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
11 Thank you, Jerry.
12 DR. COOKE: Yes, sir.
13 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: I think Vernon is next up
14 with Item 3, the Migratory Game Bird Proclamation.
15 MR. BEVILL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members
16 of the Commission. I'm Vernon Bevill, program director for
17 migratory -- for game birds.
18 Today we will be initiating the concluding
19 process for setting migratory game bird seasons for the
20 2001-2002 time period. As you recall going back to April we
21 started the process with the presentation of the proclamation
22 to get it into the Texas Register. At your meeting in late
23 May we dealt with general regulations and with early season
24 species. And at this meeting we're dealing with what we call
25 our late season species.
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1 For geese in the Western goose zone we're
2 basically proposing the same season as last year with calendar
3 shift, no change in bag or season length.
4 For the Eastern goose zone we're again
5 basically proposing the same season as last year, recognizing
6 that we're closing the light and dark new seasons a little
7 early in the -- in the Eastern goose zone to accommodate the
8 light goose conservation order that we have been participating
9 in for these past three or four years. And that conservation
10 order allows hunters to take light geese with the aid of
11 electronic callers, unplugged shotguns and going 30 minutes
12 after sunset. And we would propose in the Western goose zone
13 to initiate that the day after the regular goose season ends
14 and in the Eastern goose zone establish that as the 21st day
15 of January which is the day after the regular duck season ends
16 and run in each case to March 31st.
17 In the past we have had to close a good portion
18 of the sandhill crane season when we had the light goose
19 conversation order in Zone B. And this year we are proposing
20 to carve out that little portion of Zone B that actually lies
21 in the Eastern goose zone and close it early so we can run the
22 preponderance of Zone B the full time frame of the sandhill
23 crane season. And in Zone C we have been able to gain
24 approval from the Fish and Wildlife service to -- to shrink
25 the closed area along the coast around Aransas Refuge and so
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1 that -- that hashed area you see in this slide is the new area
2 that will be added to Zone C with one change, and that being
3 the bag limit we've dropped from the three bird bag in Zone C
4 to a two bird bag is the concession we had to make.
5 The duck and coot season proposal is pretty
6 much the same as last year for the high plain mallard
7 management unit north and south zones. Basically calendar
8 shift, we're still in what we call the liberal package, so we
9 have the full 74-day season in the North and South zone and
10 additional days in the high plain mallard management unit
11 because that's considered a lightly hunted area of the central
12 flyway from Texas all the way to the Canadian border and we're
13 fortunate to have as many as 23 additional days available to
14 us in the high plain mallard management unit. Right now we
15 have a 16-day teal season, a two-day youth hunt. And those
16 days count against the total 107 days available to us so we --
17 we have to shorten down our regular duck season just a little
18 bit in the high plain mallard management unit to fit it in
19 that 107 days.
20 The one change this year of significance to me
21 is the canvasback season. The canvasback regulations operate
22 off of a model that projects harvest from breeding population
23 and so forth. And this year the projected harvest would --
24 would drive the -- next year's breeding population below the
25 threshold for an open season. So in order to avoid that sort
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1 of scenario perhaps taking place, Fish and Wildlife Service
2 has approved a 25-day season with the one bird bag for the
3 central flyway. And we're proposing to carve that 25-day
4 period into the last 25 days of the season.
5 We have had fairly light public comment as you
6 will recall from the May meeting how much comment we had on
7 the dove issue. The duck season comments have been very light
8 and mixed. I would point out to you at this time that
9 yesterday Gary Graham and I had a conference call meeting with
10 the Game Warden Advisory Board and we discussed the late
11 season proposals. And the Game Warden Advisory Board was
12 supportive of these proposals but expressed some concern that
13 we needed to look at the structure of the South zone duck
14 season. And given the fact that we -- we hold their -- their
15 comments on the issues in very high esteem, they -- they in
16 fact brought the dove season issue to our attention, that we
17 thoroughly reviewed before making a recommendation to the
18 Commission. We take their comment very seriously on this
19 particular issue, but feel that at this point in the process
20 it would be inappropriate to maybe make such a significant
21 change without a very thorough public involvement as we did
22 with doves.
23 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Vernon, what -- what
24 exactly were they wanting to do?
25 MR. BEVILL: They would like to run the -- the
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1 South zone season basically the same as the North zone when we
2 have liberal or moderate package, in other words, 60 or more
3 days that they feel like that when we close the Sunday after
4 Thanksgiving for that 12-day split that we are missing some
5 pretty good duck hunting opportunity during that period and
6 they asked if we consider taking a serious look at that and
7 seeing if that split is the smartest thing to do as opposed to
8 running a continuous season. So I take their -- their
9 guidance very seriously and that's something that, as we did
10 with the -- with dove season, we certainly looked at that very
11 closely and try to get back to you-all by the April Commission
12 meeting, if you so desire, with some -- with findings of what
13 we what we look at.
14 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: What's the latest
15 forecast on the duck migration population?
16 MR. BEVILL: It's -- it's good. Of course, the
17 breeding population was down a little bit this year. There
18 are some areas in Canada that were dry and didn't produce and
19 that was our, frankly our, pintail production area was dry.
20 However, they did start getting some rain in late June and
21 July, so there may be some late production in that area. But
22 the fall flight is predicted to be very good. And, you know,
23 last year we -- we harvested one and a quarter million ducks
24 in Texas which I didn't expect us to harvest that many because
25 we were so dry. And so now given the fact that we're in much
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1 better shape habitat-wise and getting in better shape every --
2 every minute, we should have a pretty good season.
3 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Vernon, what is the
4 status, can you give us a little update on the status of the
5 snow goose situation in the central flyway.
6 MR. BEVILL: According to the harvest estimates
7 last year the harvest of all geese went down flyway-wide. We
8 don't really have a good appreciation or understanding of why
9 that happened. The snow goose harvest both in the regular
10 season and conservational season declined from what it had
11 been the previous year; however, the -- the indications when
12 you crunch all the numbers from the snow goose conservation
13 season and the regular season for the Mississippi and central
14 flyway and look at that, it does appear to be having a
15 positive impact on bringing the population down. We are
16 harvesting at a level that is in the bottom end of that range
17 and we needed to harvest to get that population number going
18 down. So so far we're having some positive effect.
19 The environmental impact statement for the
20 light goose season at the Fish and Wildlife Service had to
21 prepare was not completed in time for this year's regulations.
22 I anticipate that that will be finalized by next March and
23 we'll be operating sort of in a -- in a -- in a new set of
24 standards next year.
25 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Vernon, what do you
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1 anticipate those to be, the new set of standards.
2 MR. BEVILL: Say again.
3 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: What do you anticipate
4 that to be, the new set of standards once Fish and Wildlife
5 completes the IS?
6 MR. BEVILL: What do I anticipate them? I
7 think they'll be pretty much the same. A number of the
8 flyways have indicated the need to have -- to add some more
9 tools to that toolbox. Because one of the problems with --
10 with snow geese is they're so smart that they adapt to new
11 things you throw at them so you've got to keep them off
12 balance. And so I'm hopeful that we'll see a few more tools
13 available to us to implement.
14 But, you know, basically it -- this is a whole
15 different paradigm from what we're used to operating in. And
16 we are so conservative. And this is -- this is an issue of
17 population control before we can get back to population
18 management. And it's hard for us as biologists to recognize
19 the severity with which we've got to pursue this thing to make
20 it work and the other side of that is sportsmen are the same
21 way. How much will people accept in the way of liberalization
22 perhaps in some people's mind away from what we call fair
23 chase.
24 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: As a way of background
25 for maybe some of the Commission members aren't -- haven't
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1 followed this. Is there any improvement or any indication of
2 improvement of breeding grounds of snow goose as you had
3 indicated to have been decimated by this overpopulation?
4 MR. BEVILL: What we would expect to see first
5 is -- is a slowing of the rate of decimation particularly on
6 those newer colonies that we had begun to see from satellite
7 imagery problems evolving like we've seen happen with the west
8 shore of Hudson Bay. So what we're hoping to start seeing
9 over the next two or three years is that the problem of
10 habitat not expanding at the rate that it was expanding.
11 But -- but once you have destroyed that habitat, the recovery
12 cycle in that arctic environment is -- would be measured in
13 several human lifetimes.
14 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: What are the trends
15 on sandhill crane populations?
16 MR. BEVILL: The mid-continent sandhill crane
17 population is increasing. It's the largest crane population
18 in the world. The issue with sandhill cranes is that we are
19 currently trying to manage what is perceived to be three
20 subspecies with the greater subspecies which comes to the
21 Texas coast Zone C being the smaller of those three, but
22 there's some genetics work going on right now that we've
23 participated in that indicates that the intermediate and the
24 greater sandhill crane cannot be distinguished from by their
25 genetics. So if we could get back to managing two populations
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1 instead of three it may would make management easier.
2 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Is the half portion
3 of the coast because of the whooping cranes, or what's the
4 reasons --
5 MR. BEVILL: Say that again.
6 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: What's the reason for
7 the leave out on the coast?
8 MR. BEVILL: The whooping -- the whooper.
9 Yeah, we're protecting that -- that -- that corridor around
10 Aransas.
11 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: What's the rationale for
12 splitting the duck season that you mentioned earlier? Where
13 you have it and then there's a gap and then you reopen it.
14 MR. BEVILL: The -- well basically the split in
15 the duck season has several inferences. One is that every
16 time -- every time you have an opening date you see a spike in
17 harvest. So If you close a season the Sunday after
18 Thanksgiving and then -- and then rest -- rest them through a
19 weekend you tend to see a spike in the harvest when you
20 reopen, so there's more hunter activities. A lot of hunters
21 will tell you they need a rest. They need to rest and recover
22 their equipment and go Christmas shopping and those kinds of
23 things. But -- but, you know, truthfully I mean if we knew
24 exactly when ducks are going to get detected every year we
25 could do a much better job. Last year was the first year we
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1 had a real winter up north that tended to push ducks to us in
2 greater numbers and over that time frame that we normally get
3 them. If we have a light winter this year, you know, they'll
4 hold ducks up there sometimes the entire winter. So it's a
5 gray science.
6 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Thank you.
7 MR. BEVILL: Any other questions, I'll be happy
8 to answer.
9 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Any other questions or
10 discussion of this issue? Thank you, Vernon. If there is no
11 further questions or discussion, without objection I'll place
12 this item on the Thursday Commission meeting hearing for
13 public comments and action.
14 Thank you.
15 The next item is the closed season for crab
16 traps in Texas Coastal waters and that presentation from Hal
17 Osburn.
18 Hal.
19 MR. OSBURN: Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
20 Commissions. I'm Hal Osburn coastal fisheries division
21 director. I would like to brief you today on some proposed
22 rule changes for the crab fishery. It is a very sizable
23 fishery in Texas. About 6 million pounds of crab meat
24 harvested every year worth about $3.5 million at the dock.
25 The crab trap is the primary gear used and it's also used by
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1 sport fisherman and by our commercial finfish fisherman to
2 acquire bait.
3 Crab fishery is managed based on guidelines in
4 the crab fishery management plan adopted by the Commission in
5 1992. The Legislature established a limited entry and license
6 buyback program in '97 which has been very beneficial. And we
7 have a -- about 259 commercial crabbers in the fishery right
8 now.
9 One of the problems we do still have in the
10 fishery is the lost and/or abandoned crab traps. It's
11 estimated that there are tens of thousands of these traps that
12 continue to kill crabs and other species also provide -- pose
13 a safety hazard for other resource users. I can tell you that
14 picking up abandoned crab traps is a very time-consuming
15 labor-intensive job. Despite that our law enforcement
16 officers have picked up about 2,000 traps annually. But we do
17 need some help, and the Legislature provided that help this
18 last session a bill written by Senator Buster Brown and
19 cosponsored by Representative Danburg was passed. It provided
20 the Commission some new authority to establish a 10- to 30-day
21 closure during which volunteers could be used to enhance the
22 trap retrieval efforts.
23 To get some input on how best to implement such
24 a program we met with a crab advisory committee as well as our
25 crab and finfish review boards. We held scoping meetings up
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1 and down the coast so other stakeholders could provide
2 comments and most of the comments we received were positive.
3 There does remain some concern about unknown economic and
4 social impacts, especially the potential loss of fresh crab
5 markets due to a long closure. We facilitated discussions
6 around these four basic questions. And then we met again with
7 our crab advisory committee and our review boards to see what
8 they came up with. And that working group did reach consensus
9 on these issues. They provided their recommendations to us
10 and staff has accepted those as our proposals to you. And
11 that includes a coast wide 16-day closure beginning on
12 February 16 for all crab trap users.
13 The way that the closure would work is for the
14 first seven days our game wardens would be the only ones who
15 could legally pick up abandoned traps. And then during the
16 last nine days of the closure, abandoned traps become defined
17 as litter so we can have volunteers pick those up. We --
18 you'll note we have two full weekends that would be included
19 in the voluntarily pick up time period. We intend on heavily
20 soliciting volunteers and sponsors to participate in this
21 effort. We think that there is going to be a lot of local
22 support for this and that would include from members of the
23 crab industry itself.
24 Because this is the first year for the program,
25 staff recognizes that a thorough review of the success and
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1 impacts will be needed. We will report back to you next year
2 with recommendations for future retrieval efforts.
3 One final proposed change is a liberalization
4 of the current rules by -- on the gear tag. We want to remove
5 the requirement for a 30-day dating being on that gear tag.
6 This was a request from the numerous individuals in the -- in
7 the industry. It should increase their efficiency. Staff
8 believes that the limited entry program the new buoy marking
9 system and this upcoming trap removal program will suffice to
10 maintain an adequate conservation if this rule is deleted.
11 That concludes my presentation except that I
12 wanted to introduce two folks to you who have been very
13 helpful in developing these proposals. First was Charles Moss
14 who is the former sea grant marine agent and he is also
15 chairman of our crab advisory committee. He was not able to
16 be here this morning due to illness, but he did ask that I
17 read into the record a brief statement.
18 He says, "I fully support regulations to remove
19 abandoned traps from public waters. The cost to the fishery
20 due to mortality caused by derelict traps has been documented
21 beyond argument or question and I urge the Commission to
22 strongly support the proposed regulations on the basis that it
23 is the right thing to do."
24 The second gentleman that I want to introduce
25 to you is a friend of mine from actually the late 1970s when I
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1 was a biologist on the coast and he was commercial gill
2 netting. He successfully converted to commercial trot lining
3 and commercial crabbing and he's now a member of our finfish
4 review board. His name is Robert Chandler but his friends
5 call him Rabbit. And I confess that I've never asked him
6 where that nickname came from, but I wanted to introduce him
7 and let him show you how a crab trap works and answer any
8 questions that you might have. So Rabbit.
9 MR. CHANDLER: Commission Members,
10 Commissioner, I'm Robert Chandler, nicknamed Rabbit, and I
11 won't tell you where I got that name from. Anyway, I want to
12 tell you a little bit about this trap. This trap right here
13 is designed to do away with the ghost trap. Okay. The lost
14 trap where the crabs got caught can't get out. We've come up
15 with this idea here and it works perfect. I've got 200 traps,
16 I run them every other day. And what happens here is when the
17 wire deteriorates or the string, whichever one we use,
18 deteriorates, and they crawl right now. Okay. We'll show
19 this. You see it's just like a flip open door like a dog goes
20 in the house, he's out. And the reason I put it up high is
21 because you get big crabs, male crabs at the bottom, they kill
22 the little crabs. This gives the little crabs a chance to go
23 up above and get out before he gets killed by the bigger
24 crabs. This trap also has four vent holes, peeler rings. We
25 designed this to get rid of small the crabs because it was
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1 hurting our market years ago. This let everything under five
2 and a half inches go, period. As you can see, there's more
3 ways out than there is in. You got these holes down here
4 (indicating). Okay. And basically what your crab does is he
5 comes in here (indicating), he feeds and he goes to the top
6 and that's why I put these escape vent in the top and it works
7 perfect. This is basically the best trap on the coast. It's
8 designed by Vietnamese, Vietnamese use it, American fisherman
9 use it. The colors I changed them up so it looks good but
10 it's an antitheft device because nobody wants to steal this
11 color trap and drive down the road. Most crabbers use black
12 traps or we mark them with a different color wire and that's
13 why this is trap is all colored is because this is the colors
14 I use in St. Charles. And if somebody takes my trap,
15 everybody around there sees it and I've been there 40 years so
16 somebody calls me. And --
17 MR. OSBURN: How you get the big crabs out?
18 MR. CHANDLER: Well, what you do here -- and
19 this is another design that I liked about the flip open door
20 is because it's back here out of your way and it's tied shut.
21 Okay?
22 Now, you got a rope over here with your buoy
23 with our numbers on it. This is where you flip it own and you
24 lay it back and you dump everything out. Everything works --
25 when you're pulling 200 of these a day everything works easy
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1 when you've got it all set up. The design we had at first to
2 start with with the -- the vent was in the front up here,
3 well, that didn't work too good because even if the trap came
4 loose, she would still hang on it. So I went to this design
5 here and that's why I was encouraging everybody. I showed it
6 to Hal and encouraged it because it works and it's economical.
7 And we don't lose that much production off of it.
8 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: How long does it take for
9 the little twisty thing to --
10 MR. CHANDLER: We try to arrive at a point
11 where we're getting 35 to 40 days. That's where Hal and them
12 were happy so we've been working with strings and paper clips
13 and wires whatever. But what we like to work is like I said,
14 something that deteriorates within 35 to 40 days. We don't
15 want go to go too long. There are traps that get ran over by
16 outboards where they knock the buoys off and you lose them or
17 whatever. But 35 to 40 days these crabs also have ways to get
18 in and out, you know, but I'm saying after this trap say it's
19 abandoned, throwed up on the beach, the wire or the string
20 deteriorates he can crawl right of it. This hole right here
21 (indicating) let's -- I don't know we catch so seven and seven
22 and a half inch crabs in St. Charles and we sell them for
23 Jimmies in Chicago for $1.25 a pound in Aransas Pass and by
24 the time they get to Chicago they're $2.50 and we don't have
25 no problems, they crawl out of that hole. So it works. And
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1 as far as the closure I've been for it for years and we
2 encouraged it. You know, it's going to take us a little time
3 but we're going to clean up a mess that's took years to
4 happen.
5 And this trap cost met $12.25 to have it built.
6 In other words, that's just like she is, she's $12.25. So
7 that tells you I'm not going to go throw 200 of these traps
8 away. We chase down every trap we lose. So that's why we've
9 come up with almost anything you can look at. This a perfect
10 trap. It's a Cadillac.
11 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: How does that compare to
12 the price of the old trap?
13 MR. CHANDLER: The old trap, if I built it
14 myself, and the Vietnamese do, they build their own traps. We
15 got six dollars and a quarter in the trap. So I pay the same
16 Vietnamese 12 dollars and a quarter. He's making $6 labor to
17 build my trap basically. And that's -- I use the same
18 Vietnamese that builds this trap that goes crabbing, he builds
19 my trap, but I'm paying him $6 labor. And I use -- I go
20 through probably 100, 120 traps a year because that's how they
21 deteriorate out. I try to keep my string at about 180 to 200
22 traps. That's what I can work. And I usually order me 100,
23 120 new traps every year. And this is the new ones that I'm
24 having ordered right now. They're all going to be cut -- and
25 my brother's, we fish in Aransas Bay and I got two brothers
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1 and myself and my son, so we represent 800 crab traps out of
2 the four of. Us and we've all went to this design because it
3 works, it's economical and it's simple. And this is the whole
4 thing about the setup is the Vietnamese will use something
5 that are simple. If you make it complicated they won't use
6 it. So this way it's simple and they're the ones that came up
7 with this design. I'm copying off of some of the same stuff
8 that they show me up there in Sea Drift when they're building
9 these traps. If they come up a new design, they're going to
10 show it to us because I'm paying of $6 apiece for labor
11 compared to the other one's not giving them nothing. So
12 that's everything. This is perfect.
13 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Mr. Chandler, how
14 frequently are you able to check all your string?
15 MR. CHANDLER: I run my traps every other day.
16 And when there's -- well, there's been a lot of time we run
17 ever day. And basically you want to work them every other day
18 because -- this is my theory, all right? You're giving a
19 chance for the smaller crabs to crawl out but you get more
20 bigger crabs in. In other words, if you didn't have any bait
21 in this trap at all but you had eight or ten big crabs in
22 there you would still get crabs come in because it's a social
23 system. But you give them more time like every other day and
24 you got more smaller crabs dumped out. So basically when you
25 dump this trap with this peeler hole, you've got a marketable
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1 size crab. You've got no small crabs left. Before over the
2 years we didn't have the peeler holes you would sit every 15
3 or 20 minutes running traps, you'd sit 15 or 20 minutes
4 culling out the little crabs. With this trap you're basically
5 dumping a marketable product. So it cuts down on your working
6 time.
7 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Do the other crabbers
8 have their own color?
9 MR. CHANDLER: Every one of us that commercial
10 crab have some little trick that we do to our traps. So theft
11 is a problem on the Texas coast. You know, these guy some of
12 them from San Antone has got one. I've got one, I had one
13 trap at Fiesta Texas I found. How it got there I don't know
14 and I'm pretty sure it's my trap, but it got there. But
15 anyway, every one of us either mark it by certain clips,
16 certain colors and another factor is it seems that the red
17 wire attracts more female crabs than the black wire. Then you
18 get in muddier water you've got a little lighter color in a
19 yellow tray so they seem to go to the top better. It's just
20 everybody's got different theories. But the basic trap is a
21 black trap. You know, the basic overall trap is a black trap.
22 That trap cost me $10.50. In other words, if I want the basic
23 trap it's $10.50. But if I want my colored trap it costs me
24 $12.25 and I give my Vietnamese buddy an extra ten bucks tip.
25 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Well, let me ask you
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1 something. If everybody had their own color code or something
2 that was agreed upon, would it help police theft?
3 MR. CHANDLER: Theft does not come primarily
4 from the commercial industry. In other words, a commercial
5 crabber is not going to steal crab traps from the another
6 commerce crabber because there more reprisal than there is on
7 the streets of New York perhaps.
8 But the problem arises -- the problem arises is
9 Joe comes down from San Antonio and he thinks nothing of one
10 or two traps or he finds one or two traps that's on the beach
11 somewhere. You know, he doesn't think nothing about it. He
12 doesn't realize that that trap cost $12.25. So he take it
13 home and him and his wife they put it back out and catch them
14 a few crab. That's fine. But in the last couple of years
15 before there wasn't no way for them to buy these traps. You
16 know, the only way they got a trap was to pick one up. But
17 now we've got places like Sea Worthy Marine which is in
18 Rockport or Fulton. They sell basically the same trap but it
19 doesn't have any the vent holes or the escape route, it's just
20 a plain trap. They buy that trap so we've cut down on theft
21 right there because the trap is available. Most honest people
22 would rather spend $12 as to steal one.
23 But you still have a little of it, you know,
24 and when you figure it all out we call that cost of doing
25 business. If you lose four or five traps, that's just the
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1 cost. But the color trap the warden sees it going down the
2 road or if you pulled out at Goose Island boat launch with
3 this trap, probably two or three of those sports guy are going
4 to call because they know the trap. But that's because we
5 lived there 40 years.
6 Any other questions? I'll be glad to answer
7 anything you want to know about this situation.
8 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: How do you see the crab
9 population?
10 MR. CHANDLER: It's good. But we've had a lot
11 of dry weather, so I can tell you more about that in 90 days.
12 Down there where we've had, we've had the same thing the cow
13 farmer has, we've had no rain. But our crab season for June
14 and July which was basically females we had a tremendous crop.
15 But then the guys on up towards Galveston good flooded out and
16 they're not doing too good. But with this couple inches of
17 rain we got yesterday and suppose get another inch of two in
18 90 days we'll know. It takes, I don't know, these guys know
19 more about that than I do, but it takes time for them to show
20 up. But we need a little freshwater down there. Our crabbing
21 industry is pretty good and the price is good.
22 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Thank you,
23 Mr. Chandler.
24 MR. CHANDLER: I'm glad to be here.
25 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Thank you, Mr. Chandler.
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1 MR. CHANDLER: I'm going to leave this up here.
2 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Nobody will steal it.
3 MR. CHANDLER: I gave it to Hal as a souvenir.
4 The reason I had it made in these colors is because I wanted
5 it to stand out for your folks.
6 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: I think we all find it
7 helpful really to see how you do your business and we
8 appreciate you coming all the way up here.
9 MR. CHANDLER: I appreciate it. Thank you-all
10 for your time.
11 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: I appreciate you being
12 part of the solution.
13 MR. CHANDLER: Like I said, that's colorful
14 trap. My wife likes yellow and I like red.
15 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Very good.
16 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Hal, could you elaborate
17 a little bit for everybody on the process of picking up the
18 abandoned traps, identifying them and finding them and what --
19 how do you think that's going to work.
20 MR. OSBURN: I've got some staff that are going
21 to coordinate that, they've already started. We're going to
22 have to do -- we're going to do -- every bay system will have
23 several sites that we will, I anticipate, man on those
24 weekends where the volunteers are available to us. We will
25 have contacted the recycle companies to be available to pick
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1 up the traps when they're brought in. I think that the crab
2 industry will provide some basically guides to go out with
3 volunteers maybe following in their own boats. The volunteers
4 can pick then up and put them on the crab boat which is more
5 built to carry the traps obviously. So -- and I think we're
6 going to have maybe some of our own vessels stationed out in
7 the water, the research, large research vessels that we could
8 put transfer traps out on the water so the volunteers wouldn't
9 have to make such a long run back to the boat ramp and really
10 just try a number of different angles like that where the
11 Chamber of Commerce would get involved. There may be some
12 other vessels provided and try about every angle and see which
13 one works best and then enhance that for the coming years.
14 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: How difficult is it going
15 to be to find them if they don't have the buoys.
16 MR. OSBURN: Well, a lot of the traps are on
17 the bottom invisible and nobody finds them but the poor
18 shrimper who pulls them up in his net. So a lot of them are
19 up on the banks, though, and they're full of shell and sand
20 and they're half buried and that's going to take some labor to
21 pull those out.
22 In February and March the tides do get very low
23 and we can in a lot of cases see them out there. I will take
24 an effort to trudge out there. We hope to get air boats from
25 some of the, for example, the duck hunters and whatever to
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1 provide us access into the real shallow water. So we won't --
2 we won't get them all but that will be certainly the unsightly
3 ones will be our first target.
4 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Mr. Chairman. Hal, is
5 there -- talking agent your volunteer program, is there an --
6 are you proposing an organized volunteer program or can
7 anybody do this or are there any requirements to do this and
8 what, if any, safety and/or other concerns do you have with
9 regard to volunteers?
10 MR. OSBURN: Good question. Legally once that
11 seven days is up for the first seven days it -- traps become
12 liter so anybody can go out on their own pick it up, bring it
13 back and never have to tell us about it. We are going to do
14 our advertising to try to get people to focus on the weekends
15 where we're actually able to assist them and count, get a
16 count of them. And we're also going advertise the safety part
17 of it that -- and those volunteers where I anticipate we would
18 do a short training session provide gloves, you know, make
19 sure that you're -- you understand that these things are
20 capable of slicing your hand and try to be -- make sure that
21 the volunteers that are doing that are physically capable
22 of -- of doing that activity. But certainly there will be
23 some folks who pick them up on their own and we're going to
24 try to find a way to measure that effort as well.
25 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Since this is a
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1 departmental sponsored activity are there any concerns legally
2 that you have explored relative to injuries that volunteers
3 may suffer?
4 MR. OSBURN: Well, we have extensive volunteer
5 efforts throughout the department and we have consulted with
6 some of our lawyer folks to make sure that we are in
7 compliance with how those other volunteer programs are run.
8 We put volunteers in situations all the time where they could
9 be injured, whether it's from a, you know, a pipe breaking at
10 a hatchery or being hooked by a -- on a kid fishing event. So
11 we're --
12 COMMISSIONER HENRY: You mentioned -- excuse
13 me. You mentioned issuing them gloves.
14 MR. OSBURN: Yes, sir.
15 COMMISSIONER HENRY: So they won't get cut
16 hopefully.
17 MR. OSBURN: Right. That -- that -- that was,
18 you know, one of the ideas. I will tell you we're not -- I
19 will -- I will know better in a few months as we get to the
20 adoption stage on this. We've got until February, so a lot of
21 these ideas are our first brainstorming session and some of
22 them may go by the wayside, some of them may be expanded. We
23 know, for example, if we can get some sponsors monetary
24 sponsors we want to provide refreshments and whatever for the
25 volunteers when they come back to the dock and maybe want to
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1 buy some tarps to put on the bottom of the their boat so we
2 don't scratch up their boat with abandoned traps. You know,
3 it will -- it will kind of depend on the level of volunteer
4 effort that we've solicited at that point.
5 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I think it's a great idea,
6 you're to be commended for it although we've got Legislative
7 authority to do it as per usual no money comes along with that
8 authority. You have to figure out other ways of doing this.
9 MR. OSBURN: Yes, sir.
10 COMMISSIONER HENRY: But I do think you need to
11 be here to look at those concerns.
12 MR. OSBURN: Yes, sir.
13 COMMISSIONER HENRY: So we won't find ourselves
14 in a legal or some other bottleneck down the line. And I
15 would appreciate your reporting back to us as soon as you can
16 with regard to the results.
17 MR. OSBURN: We'll do that. Yes, sir.
18 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Hal, the limited entry
19 began four years ago. How many crab license have we bought
20 back?
21 MR. OSBURN: We've only had one buyback and we
22 bought seven licenses. We do have a current buyback that is
23 just -- we just received the number of licenses. We have not
24 selected how many we're going to purchase out of that. That
25 will be forwarded to Andy in the next week or so. But I
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1 anticipate that they'll be a few more than seven but we
2 certainly don't have at this point the level of volunteer
3 buyback offers that we had in the shrimp fishery, for example.
4 And I hope that that's a sign that we have a group of
5 fisherman that have an optimistic view of the fishery and
6 intend on being full-time professionals. But we do have fewer
7 in the limited entry system than we originally had authorized.
8 So I think a lot of the folks that were originally authorized
9 chose not to continue into the fishery so there may have been
10 some attrition without even having a buyback.
11 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: What's the total number
12 of licenses you said the buyback.
13 MR. OSBURN: Two hundred fifty-nine.
14 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Any other questions or
15 discussion? Thank you very much, Hal. If there are no
16 further questions or discussion, without objection I'll
17 authorize the staff to publish this item in the Texas Register
18 for the required public comment period.
19 I believe next, the same part of the world,
20 floating cabins. Dennis Johnson will give us a presentation.
21 Dennis.
22 MR. JOHNSTON: Good morning Committee Chairman,
23 Members. My name is Dennis Johnston, I'm director of water
24 safety law enforcement. Prior to the passage of Senate Bill
25 1573 no regulatory mechanism existed at the State level that
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1 would regulate the number of floating cabins in coastal water.
2 The number of floating cabins has increased
3 dramatically in the last few years due to the fact that the
4 General Land Office has not issued permits under a moratorium
5 for the permanent floating -- well, not the floating of the
6 permanent cabins in coastal water. This slide that you see
7 now is the Baffin Bay (phonetic) area point of rocks that was
8 taken in 1995 and each one of those dots may indicate more
9 than one cabin, but it tells you what was there at that time.
10 This is a slide of the same area but indicates the number of
11 cabins at this time as of the end of June of this year. It's
12 a significant increase over what we had at that time.
13 The 77th Legislature delegated to Texas Parks
14 and Wildlife Commission the authority to regulate floating
15 cabins in Coastal water. Senate Bill 1573 provided statutory
16 requirements for the issuance of permits and regulatory
17 authority to Texas Parks and Wildlife for the implementation
18 of this program. Statutory provisions of Senate Bill 1573
19 include permit eligibility. Eligibility for a permit would
20 include that the owner must apply for the permit. The cabin
21 must be moored in Coastal water on August the 31st and it must
22 float at high tide.
23 Permit application requirements would require
24 that the owners must sign the application under penalty of
25 perjury, the cabin location must be designated by GPS
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1 coordinates and must furnish photographs of the cabin
2 measurements by length, height and width and it also sets fees
3 of $1,500 deposit fee which is a cleanup fee that will remain
4 as long as the permit is there to be used for the cleanup of
5 cabin should it be needed in the future if it was abandoned
6 under those things. It also set application fee of $300. It
7 set a renewal fee and a transfer fee of $300 each.
8 The statutory requirements also required a
9 portable marine sanitation device on each cabin and it also
10 made it a violation to discharge into public water. Statutory
11 requirements also restrict cabins from mooring in State parks,
12 State refuges, State sanctuaries or Coastal preserves and also
13 restricted obstructing navigation or damaging of serpulid
14 reefs, oyster reefs, sea grass beds or resting on the bottom
15 at high tide. Statutory requirements set civil penalties and
16 criminal penalties for violation of this chapter. It
17 authorizes the department to bring civil damages for
18 violations of any of these rules. It authorizes the
19 department to set civil penalties of up to $1,000 a day for
20 each day the cabin is not removed after notice. It also
21 provided for cabin removal process to include notices and
22 authorized removal 90 days after.
23 The regulatory process and language proposals
24 that we're making today in 31 T.A.C. 55.200 Floating Cabins
25 will establish an annual permit period beginning September 1
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1 through August the 31st. A renewal requiring an application
2 of renewal within 30 days after the application at the
3 expiration of the license. It will also establish a
4 relocation process to include a department application, the
5 requirement to restrict location -- relocation to two times
6 per year. And it will allow for the removal of the cabin at
7 any time during the year for repairs and replacement back at
8 the permitted location at the end of those repairs. We also
9 propose restrictions from relocating within 1,000 feet of
10 floating cabins or structures that are permitted by the
11 Natural Resource Commission under Chapter 33 and we also would
12 restrict relocation to within 250 feet of a pipeline.
13 These proposals will establish marking
14 requirements which will include a display of the permit number
15 on two opposite sides of the cabin and will also require red
16 or orange reflector located on each end of each side of the
17 cabin for safety purposes. The proposals will establish a
18 floating cabin purchase program including procedures for bid
19 application and awarding of the bid. It will also set a
20 process to determine the established maximum cabin value of
21 that cabin for purchase and that will be based on the size,
22 previous bid officers -- offers when established and a fair
23 market value which we will determine through the applications
24 for transfer.
25 We also will define in our proposal the
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1 portable marine sanitation device to be a device that is
2 designed for onshore -- for transport of sewage for onshore
3 disposable. And we also will provide language that will
4 prevent the discharge of sewage into public water and prevent
5 the built-in sanitation devices from being capable of doing
6 that.
7 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Dennis, can I ask you
8 a question?
9 MR. JOHNSTON: Sure.
10 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Is it the intent of
11 the legislation that the permits are transferable and
12 marketable at whatever the market sets the price at or is it
13 the intent that we capture the value of the -- it's going to
14 come from the restrictions of the numbers?
15 MR. JOHNSTON: The intent was to remove the
16 number of cabins from Coastal water. And in order to do that,
17 the process that -- that we are proposing to set up will --
18 will set a maximum cabin value based on the size of the cabin
19 because there's going to be anywhere from very large cabins to
20 the smaller cabins. And also based on what those cabins are
21 selling for on the market. Now, they'll be able to sell to
22 each other. There is a process that allows them to do that
23 and we will capture the prices that those cabins sell for to
24 have a market value.
25 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I thought that's
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1 where you were going. Is that the intent of legislation?
2 MR. JOHNSTON: My understanding is the intent
3 of the legislation was to buy back the cabins and -- and to
4 reduce the numbers on the coast. And the intent was to allow
5 the commission to -- to regulate the process of doing that. I
6 don't know if that answers your question.
7 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Well, not exactly.
8 I'm still --
9 MR. JOHNSTON: Okay.
10 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: It's a tool to get
11 there. I'm just thinking about if that's --
12 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: We don't have a buyback
13 procedure at this point.
14 MR. JOHNSTON: We do not have a buyback
15 procedure.
16 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I see you what we're
17 doing.
18 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Increasing the value is
19 the point that -- that -- Commissioner Montgomery --
20 MR. JOHNSTON: We're setting up the
21 mechanism --
22 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: We're increasing the
23 value of these cabins but restricting them. The question is,
24 who gets that value increase.
25 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Restrict the number.
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1 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Yeah.
2 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Is there a limitation on
3 the size of the cabin? I mean if someone wanted --
4 MR. JOHNSTON: There is no limitation in the
5 statute to the size of the cabin. There is a limitation in
6 replacing the cabin. They're allowed to replace it if it's
7 damaged beyond repair. They are allowed to repair the cabin,
8 but they cannot -- once the permit date of this Friday reaches
9 here and these are permitted, they will be not be able to
10 increase the size of the cabin. Whatever they permit is what
11 they'll have from now on.
12 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: And there will not be any
13 more. Go ahead.
14 MR. JOHNSTON: There will not be any more.
15 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Is the fee structure based
16 on the size of the cabin or just --
17 MR. JOHNSTON: That's what we're proposing to
18 base the fee structure on the size of the cabin. A 60 by 24
19 cabin be worth considerably more than a 12 by 18-foot cabin.
20 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Right. But what I'm
21 asking is with regard to the actual permit is that fee based
22 on the size of the cabin or just it's the same fee structure
23 for every cabin?
24 MR. JOHNSTON: The fee structure is set by
25 statute at $300. And that -- it was set by the Legislature.
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1 It's not something we can change.
2 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I guess the question
3 is are we -- are we going to allow people's property value to
4 be the permit value or are we going to make it the commodity
5 value of the property underlying it. I don't know the right
6 answer, I'm just raising the question. Is it the intent of
7 the legislation to do away with cabins completely over time or
8 that's what I'm trying to understand. What are the intent of
9 legislation we're dealing with here because it really affects
10 how you go on that question it seems to me.
11 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: My understanding was that
12 it was first to check the unregulated growth. Andy, is that
13 right?
14 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: That's correct.
15 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: You make a very good
16 point which is now that you've done it you've created value
17 because of scarcity of regulating it.
18 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Absolutely.
19 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: And then as you point out
20 do you look at the -- what's the objective?
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Well, if you don't --
22 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: It determines which tool
23 you choose to --
24 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I'm not sure what --
25 I'm just thinking about it for the first time. I'm not
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1 suggesting which is right or wrong, but it also seems to me we
2 better get it right up-front 'cause once you let the value
3 genie out of the bottle it's not going back in.
4 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Is there a safety issue
5 here, in other words, are these cabins right up against each
6 other to where now you're going to have some distance and you
7 won't have that be an issue?
8 MR. JOHNSTON: At this time there's no
9 regulation regarding how they place these cabins. They can be
10 right up against each other, they can be quite a bit apart.
11 What we tried to do through this proposal is in relocating the
12 cabins we would not allow them to be within 1,000 foot of each
13 other or another structure permitted by the General Land
14 Office.
15 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: And by doing that we
16 create additional value.
17 MR. JOHNSTON: That's correct.
18 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Because someone may have a
19 better spot as you might say than someone else.
20 MR. McKINNEY: If I might help in that.
21 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Sure.
22 MR. McKINNEY: My name is Larry McKinney and
23 I'm director of aquatic resources. During the legislative
24 session when this bill was up, that was a point of discussion
25 legislatively and there were options on the table from
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1 nontransferability, in other words, it's a fixed number and as
2 they diminish you can't transfer to anything, to an option
3 that looked like something what we do with some of our
4 commercial fishery license that it's kind of a family thing,
5 there's a limited amount of transferability, to the option of
6 being fully transferable. And that was debated in -- in
7 various hearings and basically the result of the legislation
8 was that it would be fully transferable, that they could do
9 that. So that was, for whatever reason, just give clarity
10 that was -- that was their -- that was the intent of the
11 legislation to allow that and not to restrict it. Although,
12 of course, the -- the objective -- one of the objectives and
13 the main objective of the legislation was in fact to put a
14 limit on these numbers so they didn't expand as you saw in the
15 picture that we continue to add them.
16 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: How did they address
17 the funding and intent of the buyback portion of the program?
18 What's the legislation actually say there and what was the
19 discussion behind it?
20 MR. McKINNEY: There's a mechanism in the
21 legislation rules to allow for it but, of course, there was no
22 funding for it. And in fact that that funding could -- could
23 come from outside sources. We have the ability to take those
24 funds but there was none generated.
25 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Was there any goal or
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1 statement of intent attached to that mechanism or it was just
2 a mechanism that was thrown in?
3 MR. McKINNEY: Strictly a mechanism that was
4 thrown in as far as I'm concerned.
5 MR. JOHNSTON: Strictly a mechanism that was
6 there for us to use.
7 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Well, you know, if we
8 hadn't made -- if they hadn't made it where they were
9 transferable it would have been a back door confiscation in
10 effect.
11 MR. McKINNEY: Right.
12 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: And that's the issue
13 here. How do you -- you've done -- I mean that was -- I think
14 that was really what kind of swung the debates if you do that
15 then you basically taken -- taken someone's property and --
16 and --
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The primary goal, I would
18 assume, was to first off limit the numbers and put some
19 controls on them particularly from the pollution standpoint
20 and that the buyback is going to be a long-term deal. Those
21 people are not going to want to let go of them, I wouldn't
22 think anytime soon.
23 MR. McKINNEY: That's correct.
24 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: So what we're really
25 doing --
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1 MR. JOHNSTON: There is no requirement that
2 they sell the cabin to you.
3 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Right. At all, so --
4 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: And we don't have a
5 source of funds to fund a buyback.
6 MR. McKINNEY: The most likely diminution of
7 numbers will be through attrition, hurricanes go through and
8 people decide they're just not going to rebuild them and then
9 the permits lapse.
10 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I think that's going
11 to be the trick and if you try to peg a number you're going to
12 get in an argument of depreciation. You know, well, you know,
13 your new one is worth that much, ten years old, I get the
14 value to depreciate you're going to -- I would think there's
15 going to be a lot of arguments amount what that number is. I
16 wonder, just total brainstorming, whether we ought to think in
17 terms of percentage of value rather than a confiscatory number
18 if the intent is not to remove all of them. It seems to be
19 hard to argue to capture all that value. I mean, if we are
20 creating value is it the State's value or the property owner's
21 value? I don't know.
22 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: They're comparing it to
23 the shrimp buyback where the intention is to reduce, you pay
24 for the full amount.
25 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Well, I'm barely
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1 above the level of ignorance on the shrimp buyback program, so
2 I can't compare it to it. But I'm just thinking out loud
3 about economics and the sort of right and wrong of this one.
4 MR. JOHNSTON: If I might, one of the
5 considerations when this bill was being debated was that there
6 was not a -- you know, we had surveyed down there and had an
7 idea what we thought were the number of cabins but at that
8 time it was not for sure how many was down there. It looks
9 like based on what we've received so far it's going to be less
10 than was anticipated. So, you know, the need to reduce the
11 numbers may not be nearly as great as it was.
12 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I'm not expressing
13 any judgment, my own personal judgment whether good or bad or
14 out of hand or not, I'm just trying to understand our job is
15 to interpret -- there's the -- is to implement or execute the
16 legislative intent and I was trying to understand what it was
17 and what we understood it to be. It -- honestly from Larry's
18 rendition of the intent it seems to me that taxing the full
19 value increase 100 percent is -- goes beyond what it sounds
20 like they concluded we ought to do. Tell me if I'm wrong.
21 MR. McKINNEY: I don't think we know at this
22 point. There's no clear guidance on that and I think it's
23 kind of what with you-all's help kind of how to deal with
24 that.
25 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I think what that
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1 would do would be to provide very substantial funding over
2 time for the buyback program, the practical -- that curve is
3 going to cross the value.
4 MR. McKINNEY: At some point.
5 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Use that pretty fast,
6 I would think and you're going to end up buying them all back.
7 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: You don't feel that we've
8 been directed to start a buyback program at this time, do you?
9 MR. McKINNEY: No, just provide the mechanism
10 so that such as the -- for example, there could be situations
11 that come to supplemental environmental projects, monies
12 through some of the conservation organizations that anticipate
13 that. Most of them are dealing with abandoned but there may
14 be some opportunities to provide some funding for that and so
15 we want the direction I thought I got from the legislation --
16 we got from the legislation was to provide that mechanism such
17 that if funding ever comes available we could do it, not that
18 we had to go after it.
19 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Is it possible that with
20 the permits and the fees and whatever that some of the lesser
21 quality cabins will be abandoned and we'll have to have some
22 process --
23 MR. McKINNEY: I think that's exactly what's
24 happened. As Dennis said, when they -- when they went and did
25 their first surveys they're not getting as many permits back
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1 so --
2 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Have they removed them or
3 are they just abandoning them?
4 MR. McKINNEY: It probably will be a level of
5 abandonment --
6 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Yes.
7 MR. McKINNEY: -- right at the first entry
8 level.
9 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: What's our process for
10 having it done?
11 MR. McKINNEY: First permit.
12 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Can we get those crab
13 trappers removers to pick up that program?
14 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Mr. Johnston, why don't
15 you tell us about your -- the response you've gotten so far in
16 some of the communication you've had with the owners and the
17 warden and just that whole picture, I think would be helpful.
18 MR. JOHNSTON: Okay. We identified 170
19 floating cabins back at the end of June. We went out and
20 surveyed them, GPS mapped each location out there where they
21 were. And about 130 of those cabins were on the lower coast
22 and about 40 on the upper coast. We put notices on all those
23 cabins at that time telling them because of the short time
24 line of August 31st of this year to comply, what the
25 requirements were. We've sent out approximately 160
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1 applications to people that have called in from the notices.
2 During this time and as of yesterday we had received, I
3 believe, 76 applications.
4 Now, the phone calls every day this week have
5 been from eight o'clock to five o'clock saying I'm getting it
6 in the mail, I'm getting it coming to you. So I'm going to
7 estimate based on what I've -- what I've talked to people on
8 the phone it's going to be somewhere just above 100 maybe just
9 a little more than that.
10 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: What -- what property
11 rights do the folks that own these cabins have right now? Are
12 they -- what is our legal position here?
13 MR. JOHNSTON: Well, I'm not sure I understand
14 the question.
15 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: They only have right in
16 the real -- in the personal property.
17 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: In the cabin itself.
18 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Are we creating a
19 property by issuing the permits?
20 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: We're adding a value
21 because their permit, but my question is was the intent of the
22 statute that we have like an option or a first right of
23 refusal that if I own a cabin with a permit and I want to sell
24 it to Joe, that I first have to go to the State and say, by
25 the way, or.
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1 MR. JOHNSTON: We do not.
2 MR. McKINNEY: We do not.
3 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Unrestricted
4 transfer?
5 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: On the second transfer.
6 MR. McKINNEY: Unrestricted transfer. It's
7 just open, whatever they wish to do with it.
8 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: So the buyback is strictly
9 voluntary on the cabin owner's part and us. But there's no
10 mechanism for valuing or putting a value on the cabin at that
11 point in time.
12 MR. JOHNSTON: No.
13 MR. McKINNEY: No.
14 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Any provision for
15 abandonment and loss of the permit?
16 MR. JOHNSTON: There are provisions in there
17 that make them criminally responsible for not cleaning up a
18 cabin once they've been noticed -- notified. There's civil
19 penalties that the Commission can set up to $1,000 a day. The
20 Commission also has the authority under this statute to take
21 them to -- to file on them civilly for injunctive relief and
22 damages in that order.
23 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: There's no forfeiture
24 of the permit in case -- because what I'm concerned about is
25 somebody sells their permit to somebody comes and rebuilds it.
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1 MR. JOHNSTON: They can sell a permit to
2 someone. It has to be permitted and up to date. They can
3 sell it to anyone and whoever they sell it to is the one
4 that's responsible for that permit. The --
5 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: A permit can be worth
6 more than the property is the point and then if they walk away
7 from it and he says, oh, forget it and sells the permit to
8 somebody who wants to build on it, you really have -- you lose
9 an opportunity to reduce the number if that's the objective.
10 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: And before we issue a
11 permit do we do an inspection to ensure that that cabin is at
12 a certain level of maintenance or repair that it's --
13 MR. JOHNSTON: Only to the extent that we have
14 the authority which is it meets the marine sanitation device
15 requirements, that it meets the lighting requirements, the
16 identification requirements, you know, that of the things and
17 is not located in an area that's restricted, serpulid reef,
18 oyster reefs, hazard to navigation, those things we'll look at
19 and we will do an inspection prior to the issuance of the
20 permit.
21 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: And then post the issuance
22 of a permit to the extent that that standard is dropped we
23 have the right of forfeiting or cancelling their permit, in
24 other words, if they just don't maintain it or we see that
25 it's --
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1 MR. JOHNSTON: For a violation of the statute
2 rules they can, we can revoke that permit, yes.
3 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Okay.
4 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Dennis, what
5 position are there if, as -- as you predict, you're going to
6 have in-depth by the end of the week 100 or so applications
7 you've identified another 70 that are out there. What
8 position does that leave those people in and the department in
9 after, you know, September 1?
10 MR. JOHNSTON: Okay. Well, let me clarify the
11 170. When we had the wardens go out and survey the cabins out
12 there and put notices on them, instructions were to put a
13 notice on anything that meets the definition of a floating
14 cabin in order to make sure that we do everything which can to
15 notify those people. A lot of the cabins that they put
16 notices on were obviously abandoned, were in disrepair and
17 nobody may own it at that point. It may have been abandoned
18 sometime back. So that is not a good number as to expect 170.
19 We have also --
20 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: So what you're
21 saying is that among that number there are -- there are cabins
22 that were long since abandoned and there's no one --
23 MR. JOHNSTON: That's correct.
24 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Got it.
25 MR. JOHNSTON: Some of them were on large
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1 barges that were on high ground and could not be made to
2 float. A lot of them just would not -- not be able to be
3 permitted.
4 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: What's our authority or
5 responsibility to deal with those?
6 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Too many unanswered
7 questions here.
8 MR. JOHNSTON: We have the responsibility to
9 remove them once they are not permitted.
10 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: And we have the authority
11 to do that?
12 MR. JOHNSTON: Yes, sir. That's right. Yes,
13 we do.
14 MR. McKINNEY: That's where we work very
15 closely during the legislation with the groups like CCA and
16 primarily they have a pretty good program of all the bay
17 debris and they've pretty successful in getting many hundreds
18 of thousands of dollars. This would be a high priority for
19 them to -- if we can identify them and make sure that we can
20 do so, to help them get them removed, that's really our only
21 mechanism funding-wise, but it's quite expensive as you
22 might -- as you might imagine to do that.
23 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Can we require
24 certification of a transfer and can we require reporting of a
25 sales price?
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1 MR. JOHNSTON: I believe that we can. Now, you
2 know, the attorney may say that we can't do it. But I believe
3 based on what -- what the statute says our authority is, I
4 believe that we can require that information. We are going to
5 require in this proposal our requirements if they submit an
6 application to transfer which -- and they -- and the statute
7 also requires that they do it within so many days notify Texas
8 Parks and Wildlife so that the -- it's in the statute and
9 we're also addressing it in regulation.
10 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: If they didn't
11 require the certification, could it invalidate their license?
12 MR. JOHNSTON: I believe it could. It would be
13 a violation not to do that.
14 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: The reason I ask all
15 that, if you could do those three things you could set the fee
16 as a percentage of value of cost which doesn't say we take
17 100 percent of value it says we take some percentage that we
18 decide.
19 MR. JOHNSTON: I believe we could do that, yes.
20 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Yeah.
21 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Any provision for bonding
22 for those that are abandoned to provide for -- I'm thinking
23 not of the Orson Well Program, Railroad Commission, the
24 operator has got a bond in the event of abandonment there's
25 some money there to clean it up.
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1 MR. JOHNSTON: That's what the $1,500 deposit,
2 cleanup deposit was that they have to pay by August the 31st,
3 by Friday.
4 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: And that's segregated
5 funds then.
6 MR. JOHNSTON: That goes into an account that
7 can only be used for that. It will be -- if they decide to
8 take the cabin off the water and surrender the permit, then
9 that $1,500 will go back to them. If for any reason they
10 abandon the cabin, then we can -- that money can be used for
11 cleanup.
12 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: A lot of questions.
13 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: You know, in some way
14 it's no different from the city restricting zoning or building
15 permits and then turning around and saying, okay, we get a 100
16 percent of the value increase. I think everybody would be up
17 in arms.
18 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: No, the difference is
19 that no one owns this property.
20 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: It's personal
21 property, right.
22 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: It's very different from
23 that. This is not an ownership right it's just permission to
24 sit on State lands in State waters. I think it's very
25 different. And I wouldn't want any implication in the record
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1 that there is any ownership.
2 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I'm trying to
3 understand. That's a fair point.
4 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: This is a piece of
5 personal property just like if you anchored your boat or
6 anything else.
7 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Boat. It is a
8 boat.
9 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: You've take a piece of
10 chattel, a piece of personal property out on to public land.
11 I think that's a very good point, Carol, is that we've got to
12 be real clear about that because we start using terms of art,
13 legal terms that are more appropriate for real property.
14 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Yes. These people are
15 getting a tremendous benefit because they're paying $300 a
16 year. If they had a cabin on dry land they'd pay far more
17 than that for a leaseholder. And I think that we don't want
18 to overlook that they are getting essentially a great benefit
19 at the expense of the public because they're blocking what is
20 State waters, what is navigable waters. And I think it's very
21 hard to assure that you don't prevent some damage to submerged
22 vegetation or to oyster reefs or to the substrate of any --
23 you know, in any way.
24 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: The analogy would
25 be to, you know, go out into one of the 17 western states and
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1 build a cabin on public lands wherever you wanted to.
2 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: The other issue is can you
3 take one of these cabins and then make a commercial use out of
4 it like a restaurant, for example. Is there any -- is this
5 strictly for personal use as compared to commercial use?
6 MR. JOHNSTON: I'm not aware of anything that
7 would --
8 MR. McKINNEY: I wish you hadn't suggested it.
9 I don't though.
10 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Okay. No further
11 questions.
12 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: It seems to me that it's
13 for personal use.
14 MR. McKINNEY: It is silent to that.
15 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Thirty second
16 executive session.
17 MR. McKINNEY: The statute is silent to that
18 issue.
19 MR. JOHNSTON: A restaurant if somebody decided
20 to put in a restaurant that was covered and used for shelter
21 it would fit the definition of a floating cabin and they could
22 not do it if they did not already own a permit and it could
23 only be the size of that permit. So I don't think that's
24 going to happen.
25 MR. McKINNEY: I would think what would also
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1 come into play there is when you start doing that type of
2 commercial activity that does require a permit from General
3 Land Office. I mean, there's a commercial issue there and I
4 don't know what that is, but they definitely get involved at
5 that point.
6 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Good.
7 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Some of those cabins I
8 mean I think it's pretty clear are not strictly for
9 recreational use in the sense that they're vacationers that
10 some of them are fisherman that use it to fish off of,
11 commercial fisherman.
12 MR. McKINNEY: That's true.
13 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Phil, you weren't
14 proposing any changes, were you?
15 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I'm completely new to
16 the issue other than being generally aware of it, so I'm just
17 trying to understand it. I understand the distinctions Carol
18 make and that's a profound one.
19 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Thank you, Carol.
20 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I'm just trying
21 understand what our policy ought to be on this.
22 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Well, Carol, I think your
23 points were well made. I do want to stress again how much
24 effort you guys have put into informing the owners of these
25 cabins what's going on and that you-all have published in
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1 newspapers, you have had notices posted. We contacted
2 organizations. We've talked to bait shops and we've gone to
3 considerable effort to inform the owners of -- of these new
4 regulations and will continue to do so.
5 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Joseph, are we --
6 this -- these to me are just kind of general statements. Are
7 we approving specific regulations?
8 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: No. They go to the Texas
9 Register for public comment period and so we're not moving
10 this to the agenda tomorrow.
11 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: So what happens at a
12 public hearing process and then come back and consider and we
13 have time to think about the issues we raised?
14 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Yeah.
15 MR. JOHNSTON: If I might add with posting of
16 these proposals to the Register, we intend to have meetings on
17 the upper coast and lower coast with the floating cabin people
18 and -- and interested citizens to -- to talk about these
19 regulations and get their input to it. So there's still some
20 more to the process. Right now we're just asking to go to the
21 Register with it.
22 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: To clarify that if
23 you -- if you post an item in the Register and then
24 subsequently take an action on it, it may not be more
25 restrictive than what you had posted in the Register. It can
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1 only be less restrictive.
2 MR. JOHNSTON: It can be less restrictive,
3 that's correct.
4 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: So if you have
5 changes that you would like to make to this which are more
6 restricted than what is proposed, you -- I would recommend
7 that that be done today.
8 MR. McKINNEY: That's -- yes, sir, that's --
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The fee structure is
10 statutory, right?
11 MR. JOHNSTON: The only fee structure that
12 we -- the Commission could have changed would be the $1,500
13 deposit fee and the Commission could lower that fee. But
14 based on the time line of being due Friday, the $1,500 fee is
15 what they've had to submit so.
16 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: How about the issue
17 of transferability?
18 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Transferability and
19 commercial use.
20 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: I heard
21 Commissioner Fitzsimons, you asked the question as to whether
22 or not the department should have any role at the time of
23 transfer or should that be strictly a market.
24 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Well, it would be clear
25 to me and maybe it needs to be clarified that you can't
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1 transfer a permit to an out of compliance cabin. But that's
2 got to be confirmed somehow otherwise you're going to have a
3 market in these permits independent of -- of the condition
4 of --
5 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: And we need to know who
6 the new owner is so that we can enforce and know who to notify
7 if they're not in compliance. So it seems to me that we
8 almost need to be part of the process of the transfer that it
9 will registered with.
10 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: We've got to inspect it
11 before you -- before you essentially approve the transfer.
12 Otherwise you're going to have an independent market in these
13 permits.
14 MR. JOHNSTON: That -- that -- that provision
15 is in place in the proposal to be able to do that.
16 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: To where they would have
17 to come to us and advise us of a transfer prior to a transfer
18 or contemporaneous with?
19 MR. JOHNSTON: They have to submit an
20 application to do that and in that application we can -- we
21 can do what we need to do there as far as inspection.
22 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: The series of
23 questions I was asking is they have -- they have to come in
24 and apply for a transfer, they have to be approved for a
25 transfer. If they don't, they can lose the permit. Are those
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1 all in there so we have that option and the reporting of sales
2 price recording to sales price?
3 MR. JOHNSTON: The statute requires that they
4 notify us when they're going to transfer within so many days.
5 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: But that's different.
6 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Inspection.
7 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: In other words, they could
8 transfer it today and notify us in two weeks, by the way, I've
9 already transferred it.
10 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Then it's out of
11 compliance.
12 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: So you've got
13 somebody who's got a permit --
14 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: You've lost your hammer.
15 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Yeah, you've lost
16 your hammer it seems to me that you've got to have an
17 inspection before transfer.
18 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: I agree with that.
19 MR. JOHNSTON: In our proposal we're requiring
20 that they submit an application to be able to make that
21 transfer. Which would give us more than just the notice that
22 they require within so many days.
23 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Well, I think they're
24 asking you in the record because we get one shot at it to be
25 sure that it's clearly prior -- the prior requirement before
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1 the transfer is effective at least.
2 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Before they transfer it
3 that they comply with all rules --
4 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: It's not a valid
5 transfer if they don't do that.
6 MR. McKINNEY: That's a condition of the
7 transfer that cabin has to be in compliance with their rules
8 before that can even happen.
9 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: That and that we be
10 notified and that we approve the transfer prior it being, in
11 other words, that they have -- we eventually have to approve
12 the transfer.
13 MR. JOHNSTON: We can do that.
14 MR. McKINNEY: They have to get our clearance
15 on the condition before they can even take those next steps
16 of -- is that what you're asking?
17 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: What you're suggesting is
18 that there -- there be a formal inspection before the approval
19 of the permit.
20 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: That we ensure that that
21 cabin is at the level of maintenance or that would satisfy us
22 or satisfy staff.
23 MR. McKINNEY: We would have to do an
24 inspection.
25 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: I don't know how else you
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1 do it.
2 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: That provision is
3 in there, right?
4 MR. JOHNSTON: It doesn't require an
5 inspection, it requires an application.
6 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: I'm trying to get down on
7 to an application can be lied.
8 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: Can you tell us again
9 about in during the application you have to make sure of
10 certain things, right, that you have a portable marine
11 sanitation device and all that stuff. So there are some kind
12 of requirements for the application to give us a way to --
13 MR. JOHNSTON: We will inspect it prior to the
14 issuance of the permit. We will inspect them each year prior
15 to renewal of it so we'll know those that are and those that
16 are out of compliance. And the basic thing we're looking at
17 is where it's located. The restrictions of where they can be.
18 That's where the problems are going to come in so they cannot
19 move it without filing a relocation application with us. They
20 cannot move it until we certify that that's a good place.
21 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: But as a -- as a -- as a
22 practical economic matter the time that a person is going to
23 sell this is when they decided that they don't want to spend
24 the money to bring it back into compliance.
25 MR. McKINNEY: It's rundown.
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1 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Exactly. That's when
2 somebody as a practical matter is going to try and unload it.
3 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: So would it be --
4 MR. JOHNSTON: There are no requirements on the
5 condition. The only requirements are marking, marine
6 sanitation device, and where it's located. There is no --
7 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: That's statutory again
8 that we don't have any say over.
9 MR. JOHNSTON: That's correct. We can't tell
10 them what kind of condition it's got to be in.
11 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: It's got to be seaworthy.
12 MR. McKINNEY: If they have the marking, the
13 permit site, the sanitation device, it can be four poles and a
14 piece of canvass over the top. We don't have any -- we
15 could -- that's the tool we'd have to do the inspection but we
16 can't tell them if it's collapsing or half floating.
17 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: So if it's just a pole
18 with of canvas and the sanitation device and the correct
19 notation.
20 MR. JOHNSTON: And marked properly.
21 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: And properly marked, then
22 I can buy the permit and build anything I want to on it?
23 MR. JOHNSTON: We took the size of your canvas
24 and the footprint on the water.
25 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: We're requiring
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1 photographs, remember, of the structure. For instance, I
2 believe you explained to me if a hurricane comes along and
3 wipes you out and all you left are the -- are the beams stuck
4 in the water, you know, in the water you can replace it. But
5 it has to be the same size?
6 MR. JOHNSTON: Cannot be any larger.
7 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: You're grandfathered to
8 the original.
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: But you can build it back
10 however you want.
11 VICE-CHAIRMAN IDSAL: And make it nicer. You
12 can make it look better.
13 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: I advice the
14 Chairman to wind this up. I would like to address one other
15 issue. Commissioner Montgomery's question about the added
16 value. And I -- you know, I want the guys to correct me if
17 I'm wrong, but all of our limited entry programs to date have
18 been based on the presumption that, yes, you know, once you
19 did limit the number that did create the opportunity for those
20 things, be they shrimp license or floating cabins to
21 appreciate. And that buyback programs then were -- are
22 conducted in that context. That if the license goes from
23 $1,000 to $10000 then that is simply a greater cost that we
24 bear at the time that we buy the license back. And so I
25 believe that our assumption has been although there's no money
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1 in this program for buyback that the same principal would
2 apply here. That if 20 years from now one of those permits is
3 worth $100,000 and we wish to buy it out, that will be the
4 cost.
5 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: But what about --
6 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: I believe that is
7 consistent with all our limited entry philosophy and policies.
8 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: So how about the funding
9 and the fee assessment related to that? How do you price
10 that?
11 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Well, it's fixed. The fee
12 is fixed.
13 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Yeah, at 15 and 3.
14 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: It doesn't sound like
15 we've really got that big a problem. There's only going to be
16 a hundred of them or so that are going to end up permitted it
17 can't be that big a deal.
18 MR. JOHNSTON: It's not going to be much over
19 100. That $1,500 fee transfers with the permit as long as
20 that permit is out there that money stays in that fund.
21 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: It's just not going to be
22 that big of a deal.
23 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: We've got no magic on
24 saying that, then.
25 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Mark, we haven't heard
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1 from you. You're the coast fellow.
2 COMMISSIONER WATSON: Well, I agree with Ernie.
3 I don't think it's going to be that big of deal. I think that
4 with only 100 of these, you know, situations and I don't see
5 them growing. I think that one of these days we are going to
6 get a storm and, you know, I think every time we've had a
7 storm, you know, in my observation, anyway, the number of ones
8 that are built back is always less than the ones -- the number
9 taken away. And I think over a period of time I think they're
10 going -- I just don't -- I don't think it's going to be a big
11 deal.
12 MR. McKINNEY: Mr. Chairman, we want to make it
13 clear it is your direction that we make it clear that we do
14 those inspections on transfers before that happens, you want
15 to make that clear that's -- I want to make sure we get that
16 direction.
17 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: I think that could be
18 good.
19 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SANSOM: Yes. Thank you.
20 MR. McKINNEY: Thank you very much.
21 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: Cognizant that the
23 Regulations Committee is not the only, are there any other
24 questions that we can --
25 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Are we concerned that the
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1 morning is going away?
2 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: That's right. I'm
3 looking at the watch. If there are no further questions or
4 discussions on Item 5, without objection I authorize the staff
5 to publish this item in the Texas Register for the required
6 public comment period.
7 Any other business to come before the
8 Regulations Committee? If not I entertain a motion to adjourn
9 again the Regulations Committee.
10 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: So moved.
11 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Second. All in favor?
12 ("Aye").
13 CHAIRMAN FITZSIMONS: All opposed? The motion
14 carries and I pass the gavel back to Madame Chair.
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1 THE STATE OF TEXAS )
2 COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
3 I, KIM SEIBERT, a Certified Court Reporter in and for
4 the State of Texas, do hereby certify that the above and
5 foregoing pages constitute a full, true, and correct
6 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
7 Commission on August 29, 2001, in the Commission hearing room
8 of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin,
9 Travis County, Texas.
10 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic record was made by
11 meat the time of the public meeting and said stenographic
12 notes were thereafter reduced to computerized transcription
13 under my supervision and control.
14 WITNESS MY HAND this ____ day of ____________________,
15 2001.
16
17
18 ___________________________
KIM SEIBERT, Texas CSR 4589
19 Expiration Date: 12/2002
3101 Bee Caves Road
20 Suite 220, Centre II
Austin, Texas 78701
21 (512) 328-5557
22
23
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